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Wednesday, June 10, 2009
What makes a home Smart?
You may hear this being called a couple of different names “Integration, Smart Home, Automation, etc…” A lot of builders are claiming that their homes are wired for the future or Smart Wired. I have a very big problem with this because it’s not true in any way. What builders do is a form of Structured Cabling and usually has little to do with home automation. If you were to do a full blown automated smart home you would far more wires to be run through your home on top of what the builder ran.
Imagine having every system in your home “HVAC, security, home theater, lighting, drapes and appliances such as your garage door opener” all wired into one main control processor to allow them to communicate with one another. Anything you want could become a trigger that automatically causes whatever event “your imagination can come up with” to happen. Here is an example:
You sit down to watch a movie and hit play on your wireless touch panel. The TV turns on, the movie begins to play, the drapes close, and the lights fade out. All of this takes place automatically with the push of a single button. Let’s assume you are watching your movie and need to pause it to hit up the bathroom. You press pause and the lights automatically turn back on to a comfortable setting that doesn’t blind you. Perhaps it is the doorbell that triggers the movie to pause in which case the system could change the input on your TV to display a security camera for the front door. You could choose to ignore it and press play again or since the security system is tied into your touch panel you could unlock the front door and let them in with the push of another button.
In any case what you can make a Smart Home do is usually limited by two things “Money and Imagination.” New technologies are always emerging that make it much more affordable for average people but it will still be a number of years before a concept like this becomes affordable enough to consider.
Keep an eye out for my next Integration topic “Z-Wave” and how it will cut the cost of smart home integration significantly
Imagine having every system in your home “HVAC, security, home theater, lighting, drapes and appliances such as your garage door opener” all wired into one main control processor to allow them to communicate with one another. Anything you want could become a trigger that automatically causes whatever event “your imagination can come up with” to happen. Here is an example:
You sit down to watch a movie and hit play on your wireless touch panel. The TV turns on, the movie begins to play, the drapes close, and the lights fade out. All of this takes place automatically with the push of a single button. Let’s assume you are watching your movie and need to pause it to hit up the bathroom. You press pause and the lights automatically turn back on to a comfortable setting that doesn’t blind you. Perhaps it is the doorbell that triggers the movie to pause in which case the system could change the input on your TV to display a security camera for the front door. You could choose to ignore it and press play again or since the security system is tied into your touch panel you could unlock the front door and let them in with the push of another button.
In any case what you can make a Smart Home do is usually limited by two things “Money and Imagination.” New technologies are always emerging that make it much more affordable for average people but it will still be a number of years before a concept like this becomes affordable enough to consider.
Keep an eye out for my next Integration topic “Z-Wave” and how it will cut the cost of smart home integration significantly
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